TAACCCT Grants: Let CAEL Help Your Institution or Consortium

May 20, 2013Sarah Miller

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Last month, the Department of Labor opened its new applicant round of Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grants, which provides funding to community colleges to develop job training programs in partnership with employers. The latest round of the program – which will disperse over $474 million in grants – will be accepting applications until June 18 for single institutions and until July 3 for consortiums. The selection of recipients is expected to be announced in September.

CAEL is excited about this new round of funding and the importance placed by this undertaking on programs aligned with growing industry sectors. And we are excited about the use of prior learning assessment (PLA) by these programs as a key method in helping participants obtain a credential in a cost-effective, time-saving manner.

Recently, CAEL hosted a webinar that discussed valuable approaches to help strengthen individual college or consortia applications. Some of these approaches included:

- Creating “stacked and latticed credentials” that include helping trade-impacted workers leverage their experience to gain college credit and move forward to degree/certificate completion more rapidly.
- Understanding how laid-off individuals can re-purpose skills from a declining sector to add value to emerging sectors.
- How to build capacity to provide career planning, program guidance, and job placement.
- Locating sources of economic and occupational data, utilizing tools for mapping target participants' former occupation, and discovering skills to high-growth occupations that are a good fit for individuals.